Indonesia Calling!

Thetraveljunkie.org – Happy Independence Day to all Indonesian People making this country proud! In 1946, Joris Ivens made the 22-minute film Indonesia Calling in Australia. In the process, he not only created a fertile breeding ground for Australian film culture, but he also ruined his relationship with the Dutch government. The previous year, he had given up his position as film commissioner for the Dutch East Indies, as he could no longer accept the Dutch colonial role. When the Dutch army left Sydney Harbor intending to retake control of their colony, activists from Indonesia, Australia, India and China sought to prevent them.

Ivens’ film is about this blockade. Indonesia Calling: Joris Ivens in Australia uses interviews and lots of archive footage to sketch the role Ivens and his own film played in the origins of independent Australian film culture.

“The documentary must not remain a grounds for emotional or literary excitement at the beauty of matter; it must draw reactions and provoke latent activities.” – Joris Ivens (1931)

It also provides us with an impression of the developing relationship between Australia and Indonesia, in which Ivens’s film apparently played a considerable role.

Indonesia Calling:

And, you should watch this documentary movie too.

The Act of Killing (Jagal), a 2012 documentary film about individuals who participated in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66. The film is directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and co-directed by Christine Cynn and an anonymous Indonesian.

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